I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to buckets used with work vehicles. More specifically, this invention relates to multi-purpose buckets used with work vehicles.
II. Related Art
Various work vehicles exist in the art. Such work vehicles include, without limitation, skid-steer loaders, back hoes, excavators, power shovels, front end loaders, tractors and the like. A variety of bucket attachments have been developed for use with such vehicles. However, such buckets typically are designed for a single purpose.
For example, some buckets are designed for excavating. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,546,650 to Meurer. Others are designed for grading. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,662,478 to Virnig. Still others are designed for digging. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,028,823 to Edwards et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,283 to Fellner and U.S. Pat. No. 3,478,449 to Baker. Some are designed for dislodging (or moving) rocks, stumps and other large and bulky debris. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,320 to Wass and U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,441 to Norton. Others are designed for scooping and lifting. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,587 to Maurer. Still other are adapted for sue in hard materials such as rock strata, caliche, soapstone and plastic soils such as clay. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,641 to Ballinger. Some buckets are designed for ripping and trenching applications. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,433 to Knell et al. Still other buckets are designed for scraping or leveling the ground. See U.S. Pat. No. 7,562,473 to Westendorf et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,434,863 to Meurer and U.S. Pat. No. 6,910,290 to Meurer.
The specialized nature of bucket attachments forces owners and operators of work vehicles to make a choice. They have to decide whether the work vehicle will be used for a single purpose or whether the work vehicle will be used for multiple purposes at various job sites. If the work vehicle is equipped with a single specialized bucket, several work vehicles may need to be transported and operated at the job site to complete the job. This can greatly increase the cost of the job and needlessly tie up expensive equipment. If the work vehicle will be used for multiple purposes, various specialty buckets will need to be transported to the job site to complete the job. The task of changing buckets, however, can lead to inefficiency and also increase the risk of job related injuries. This choice and the problems associated with each of the two options could be eliminated by providing a multi-purpose bucket suitable for performing multiple tasks such as excavating; grading; lifting; digging; dislodging rock, stumps and other debris; scooping and lifting; working with hard materials such as rock strata, caliche, soapstone and clay; ripping and trenching; and scraping and leveling. While other have developed multi-purpose attachments for work vehicles (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,820,357 to Menard et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,885 to Staben, Jr.), these attachments have been limited in terms of the number of applications they can perform effectively and efficiently.